I sum up this week with a Guns N' Roses quote : I lead a Beckless life. Werbakeuh is in the warmer pastures of the horse farms of Texas - specifically, Navasota, TX, a small town with no known Nova Scotia connections, nor has Chris Cornell ever specifically complained about looking Texas but feeling Navasota (but we all eagerly await the Texas Soundgarden comeback anyways). The Beck is down there for a one-week internship with the S.S. Buick Park Avenue, hopefully surviving the weather and not having her brain infected my mad-Aggie disease due to the dangerous proximity. She'll be back on Sunday, but in the interim, I am on my lonesome own. Well, I have Tweedles to keep me company, or at least to beg me to play, go on W's, eat pepperoni, that type of thing. So I've been up to that and a whole lot of chaperoning of Walnuts. Actually yesterday was a rather ridiculous day - took Werby to the aeropuerto del Providence at 6, drove to the 'Nut, drove to the airport, picked up a violist, drove back, drove to Grafton, W'd the dogs, back to the Nuthouse, back to the airport, back to the land of crazy art kids, back to Grafton. Dios mio, man. Eight hours or so in the car / van, and I didn't even go anywhere. I had to check my butt for bedsores. Not really.
Another bloggity entry, another shoutout to Zil, she of CBS fame and a generally Phish-headed math genius: this time it's for her e-mail of the Bozeman Police Blotter. Specifically this edition of the blotter which is full of comic genius. Remind to never suspiciously enjoy the sunshine in Bozeman.
Also, if you've never had the pleasure of receiving a message from Liz on your answering machine or voice mail, you are missing out on a rich and varied experience. A very fast rich and varied experience that rambles quite a bit, actually. They're awesome. Liz is awesome. We're talking pantheon of awesome human beings status. Gandhi, Mother Teresa? Morons.
"This has been the over-the-top shout-out, brought to you by The Family Guy, who would like to remind you, if it's not overdone and obvious, it's not funny (TM)."
So I am ripping the guitar to shreds, in a good way. Added another tune to the holster, a classic and favorite of my dad's, "Get Back" by los Beat-lees. And today I cranked it to (three)11 for a couple of songs and then turned it up another couple of notches for a longtime AC/DC classic, "Thunderstruck." Try as I might, I cannot escape my KZEP-laden roots. Seriously, what the hell is up with the San Antonio classic rock connection. Didn't Ozzy pee on the Alamo? That's okay? I don't get it. Regardless, my childhood was a blurry pastiche of power chords, a whole lot of Scorpions, Thin Lizzy, Blue Oyster Cult, AC/DC, Santana (well, duh on that one), Bachman Turner... need I go on? Regardless, I gotta say... I played "Thunderstruck" today, I mean really played it, even parts of the solos. You should comprehend that this was a vague impossibility not too long ago. Not that it's a particularly hard song - it's not - just that there's some pull-off technique stuff that I could never *really* get, but I just nailed it today. I'll make it official tomorrow. But, as they say, everything's coming up Milhouse.
I'm going to try to comment on the music I'm listening to a little more often in this space, because otherwise I'll be bland and run out of things to say. I'm currently listening to the relatively new Band of Horses album Everything All the Time. Very anthemic, jangly, and Wayne Coynely sung vocals. Reminds me of parts of The Walkmen album Bows & Arrows, actually. The whole disc blends together, meaning that's it's all solid, but not a ton stands out. So it's a top-to-bottom listen, but just not very singles-oriented.
I listened to Bill O'Reilly on the radio today. I also read a miscellaneous pop-psych piece on the web yesterday about ingroup / outgroup objectives in marketing (for example, how companies will try to get you to label yourself as a "Mac" or a "PC" person). I find it fairly difficult to deny some of the effects of in-group psychology, and Mr. Bill abuses it sans shame. I'm actively trying to make knee-jerk, elitist condemning opinions about folks like him - but his show comes across a whole lot like choir-preaching: "Look at those crazy-ass liberals; aren't you glad we're not like them?" And everything in the show was an effort to label this or that newspaper as "leftist" or "unfair" or "unevenly presenting the news." And he made some rather odd "liberal Jew" comments here and there, too - subtle, but consistent. Not that he was off-topic - they were discussing the Israel situation, which I will not even attempt to discuss here - but his whole indictment of the "leftist" newspapers was that they were unable to present any kind of anti-Israeli argument for fear of alienating their lefty-Jewish subscription base. Who knew Sandy Koufax had such influence. Anyways, the whole thing was absurd, seeing as Fox News would be hard-pressed to present any anti-American sentiment in their own programming. I think O'Reilly half-heartedly acknowledged this fact, but said nothing in reference to its equally-condemning application to his own news organization: the conservatives can't bash America for fear of alienating their fanbase, either. Just like, you know, Metallica can't go pop. Oh, wait. Anyways, what pushed it over the top was this "Team Good Americans" (F*** Yeah!) take on the whole thing - he made repeated references to how the leftists were "taking it on the chin," "getting their butt kicked," etc., backed up by, wait, oh, what's that, nothing. He's a smart dude, and a lot of what he said today regarding the Israelis and their right to defend themselves was spot on. But the rest, the tinsel to his Rightmas tree - it's just B.S. He lies, and rather blatantly. SuperDave Letterman knows the deal.
In the midst of this thought-provoking (though interrupted every five seconds by commercials - seriously 96.9, is times tough?) radio show, a car passed me with a "Marriage = Man + Woman" sign. I fail to see the point. People dying, WW III on the horizon, child actors beating one another on boxing shows, and this is really your prime-bumper-real-estate cause? So then I peek in the car, and it's Joe and Jane Suburbanite humming along to their Lawrence Welk greatest hits CD, and I just want to punch them. And I contemplate the level of hypocrisy this involves, given the revulsion I felt at the many glorious-and-entirely-appropriate-for-impressionable-youth-audiences anti-flag-burning videos at Texas Boys' State. (Nothing quite as scrumptious as a subtle brainwashing at the hands of the American Legion - if their brand of dependent-thinking were a dessert, it would be Death By White Chocolate). The accountant and the Mary Kay saleslady have a right to express their hateful (okay, I realize it's not intrinsically hateful to have that opinion re: marriage, I just think displaying it in bumper-sticker form is a tad gratuitous) (e.g., I don't put bumper-stickers on my car that say "you are all consumer slave braindead morons who lack the creativity and originality to express your questionably hateful political opinions in forms other than bumper stickers" - that would just be unnecessarily antagonistic, don't you think?) opinions in bumper sticker form just like every other American-Flag-Pin-Wearing Citizen. Right? Sure. So I didn't run them off the road. Thank god for level heads. And Boys' State. That. I. Love.
So that was today. In the words of a band that's either named after something vaguely Satanic, a form of current, or perhaps a very in-the-face of Lawrence Welk listening suburbans lifestyle:
You've been (Echo: you've been you've been):
THUNDERSTRUCK
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